Founded in 2006, HF Designworks is a Human Factors (HF)/User Interface (UI) Research, Analysis, and Design company focused on the User Experience (UX).

We have helped dozens of companies over the years improve their products for their end users. We have even developed a few of our own applications along the way that have been used by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and here in the United States by the Department of Homeland Security.

Services

The HF Designworks team offers clients our extensive experience in the development of industry leading products. This is in large part to our staff comprised of:

We love to get our hands and feet wet in a variety of projects ranging from race cars to unmanned aircraft and everything in between.Some of our most recent projects include:

Eagle Cap Aero Charting

Supported Eagle Cap Software with the design of their Aero Charting iOS application (now available on Apple’s App Store). This application allows general aviation pilots to create and chart their flight routes over various maps and overlays.

Army Future Vertical Lift (FVL)

HF Designworks is supporting the FVL effort through identifying best of breed technologies and automations as well as developing human performance models to test and evaluate these technologies and automations to help determine optimal crew configurations.

Resource Central

HF Designworks has been working with Resource Central assisting with their Slow The Flow water conservation program. We have developed an interface for auditing customer water usage as well as an online calendar system for scheduling appointments.

NASA UAS in the NAS

HF Designworks has supported NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in meeting the goals of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System, aka UAS in the NAS. This effort seeks to fill key gaps in the current NASA research and technology portfolio in the areas of modeling and simulation, separation assurance and detect and avoid, systems analysis, certification and test techniques for unmanned aircraft systems. Current Federal Aviation Administration safety of flight rules and certification standards were written with the assumption of having a pilot aboard the aircraft. These standards limit operation of unmanned aircraft systems in the national airspace. The goal of NASA’s UAS in the NAS project is to reduce technical barriers related to the safety and operational challenges associated with enabling routine access for unmanned aircraft systems to the NAS. As part of this effort, HF Designworks reviewed the latest UAS advances, exploring advanced waypoint navigation and autopilot technologies, as well as detect and avoid auto resolver type algorithms.

Location Based Critical Information Reporting

Leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and HF Designworks’ own analytic algorithms, we built a system that scoured through social media and news outlets to extract needle in a haystack news stories of proximal- and preference-based importance to end users.

Starting with a Phase I effort and culminating with a Phase II enhancement effort, and now looking at commercialization opportunities, HFDW developed iWarrior, a web based information visualization tool for commanders. iWarrior supports human behavior analysis, situation awareness, and mission planning by leveraging historical GPS data and presenting it to commanders in an easy to understand manner. Visualizations include playback of missions, mission notes, and importantly, statistics and heat maps which identify patterns in travel/patrol behaviors used for preventing insurgents learning coalition force techniques. Features of iWarrior have been transferred to other programs including Blox, Response Force, and Transformative Applications (HFDW has developed two Android mobile applications under the Transformative Applications program; MyHeatMaps and TransCalendar). Components of our products as well as entire in-house HF Designworks developed applications have seen use in Iraq (U.S. Army), Afghanistan (U.S. Army), Presidential inaugurations [by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)], and Boston Marathons (DHS). As part of an internal commercialization effort, HF Designworks has also developed these heat maps to be used by UAS (leveraging data provided by local UAS manufacturers) to show areas of travel for sensor optimization and fuel efficiency.

Client/Partner List

HF Designworks is proud to work with the following companies:

About HF Designworks

HF Designworks, Inc. is a human factors, user interface research and design company focused on system end users. We make system interfaces easier, more effective, and safer to use. We have applied our knowledge, skills, and design methodologies to improve the survivability of soldiers by improving the ease of use of systems that support a soldier’s situation awareness and understanding. We have also created software for and performed usability assessments of unmanned aerial systems, mapping and navigation software, battlefield visualization software applications (on desktop, web, and mobile devices), voice and video conference call systems, computer network infrastructures, medical devices and medical software, wearable computers (e.g., PDAs, tablets), and traditional computer software and web-based programs.

HF Designworks is located in Boulder, Colorado, looking out to the Rocky Mountains. HF Designworks has extensive on-site capabilities in rapid interface prototyping and software development.

About the HF Designworks Team

Scott Scheff is CEO and a principal Human Factors Engineer at HF Designworks, Inc., in Boulder, Colorado. With over 20 years of applied experience, Mr. Scheff has formal training in human factors design, user experience research, user interface design, human computer interaction, and human performance modeling. Mr. Scheff’s vast multidisciplinary experiences span both the commercial and government sectors; designing software and hardware for both small-scale and large-scale products. These products include design and development of wearable computers for Army infantrymen, blue force tracking for ground vehicles, unmanned vehicle command and control systems, as well as a host of medical and consumer devices.